By A Correspondent
New Delhi: With serious delays in Tejas Mk1A fighter jet induction hitting its combat fleet strength, India’s air force is said to have agreed with the Defence Ministry on contract exemptions to the aircraft maker but without compromising on the ‘must have’ technologies.
Indian media reports indicated that the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) agreed to grant “certain” exemptions to state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) from its contractual obligations for the Tejas Mk1A in a compromise move, following talks.
The agreement is said to be the middle path so that the long-pending delivery of the 180 contracted Mk1A variant of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) could be done, and these fighter jets could find a place in the IAF combat squadrons from the next fiscal year beginning April.
Quoting unnamed sources, The Print reported on February 21, 2026, that the IAF would not compromise on the terms on ‘must-have’ technologies and capabilities of the aircraft based on the tripartite agreement with HAL and the aircraft developer Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) in 2016.
ADA, a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratory, is the primary designer of the LCA, while HAL is the manufacturing agency.
Under the new understanding, the report said, IAF would accept the delivery of the Tejas Mk1A aircraft from its 2021 contract with HAL for 83 jets after the manufacturer and the designing agency complete the missile firing tests, and the integration of the AESA radar and the weapons package with the Electronic Warfare systems on the aircraft.
While the missile firing trials were completed recently and certification is underway, the other two from the above-mentioned mandatory tasks were described as “essential” and “non-compromisable” must-haves on the Mk1A jets for these to be inducted into IAF’s operational squadrons.
“The IAF has already granted exemptions to HAL for faster delivery of the aircraft, 180 of which have been ordered for,” the report quoted an unnamed source as saying.
The report indicated that the IAF was ready to accept the aircraft with pending work on the agreed upon technologies that were not an immediate requirement and could take about a year or more to be done.
While HAL argued before the MoD and IAF that most of the pending work were ADA’s responsibility, these were not a manufacturing delay on the aircraft maker’s part.
HAL also noted that major capabilities incorporated in Tejas Mk1A were under certification and would be completed by April. This led to the IAF to agree to acceptance trials of the Mk1A variants being rolled out by HAL, and this could take a few weeks to complete.
The IAF had initially contracted for induction of 20 LCAs in the Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) and 20 in the Final Operational Clearance (FOC) configurations, and decided to wait for the Mk2 variants to be developed and produced.
However, considering the criticality of the Tejas project for India’s self-reliance in combat jet manufacturing, a compromise formula was evolved when late Manohar Parrikar was India’s Defence Minister in 2016, and a new Mk1A variant was agreed upon with upgrades to the FOC configuration, before Mk2 was developed and produced.
The IAF is said to be insisting on the ‘must-have’ capabilities from the 2016 arrangement, which led to the 2021 contract for 83 Tejas Mk1A aircraft.
A review of the Tejas production was held in December 2025 when HAL projected April 2026 as a possible deadline for completion of various tasks to build the Mk1A capabilities to agreed upon configuration. It was then decided to review the project in April 2026.
That was why the IAF recently insisted on a review of the entire project before it agreed on the acceptance trials for the currently “ready” five Tejas aircraft from HAL.
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